The End
by Head Explody
Summary: The revised version of The Return
1. the return

Title: The End  
  
Author: XxStarbuckxX  
  
Summary: Ok, I changed the title. I couldn't think of one that was really appropriate for the story. *shrug* It's the revised version of "The Return."  
  
Rating: PG13  
  
Genre: Romance/Angst, mostly. But there's the kinda A/A thing too. ^_^  
  
A/N: Thanks everybody who read The Return. I'm revising it, so hopefully I'll have more chapters and they'll be longer and stuff. BTW--I LIVE FOR FEEDBACK!  
  
==XxXxX==  
  
First day of a new year at Hogwarts. A tall, slim figure was storming down the dungeons, robes billowing behind. This figure was a woman, who walked with an air of anger. Her step showed that she was impatient, if you could note these things in the dark of the dungeons. She could. She had long, brown hair and dark, deep, fathomless brown eyes. These eyes were the last things that many of the innocent saw before entering their afterlife.  
  
Here was a woman who had made one of the worst decisions of a lifetime, while blindly in love, without a thought for any consequences. A woman who had followed a man to hell and returned back, which few could say they had done. A woman who made it into the pits of hell, where the dregs of society lay, and had returned. She had met the end and the darkness.  
  
Stella Wolfsbane had returned to Hogwarts.  
  
==XxXxX==  
  
Severus Snape sat beside Professor McGonagall at the staff table in the Great Hall. The other seat beside him was empty. He was very surprised indeed that no one else seemed to know who the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was. Or maybe Dumbledore had just "forgot" to mention it. She hadn't showed up for any of the staff meetings at all.  
  
And now she was late for the feast. He scoffed at this. He didn't know her name--all he knew was that this teacher was a woman--and he hated her already.  
  
Snape glared through the Sorting, smiling grimly at the new additions to his House. He enjoyed the fearful glances in his direction from the first years.  
  
When the Sorting was finally finished, Dumbledore silenced the Great Hall. He never had to put forth much effort in this. Snape didn't either; but Dumbledore wasn't the most feared teacher at Hogwarts.  
  
"Welcome! Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! Before the feast begins, I have an important announcement to make--"  
  
As though on cue, even though it was by chance and total accident, the doors that Snape usually entered from flung open. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, except Snape, who was glaring and smirking, and Dumbledore, who was smiling warmly.  
  
"I would like to introduce," Dumbledore continued after the brief pause, not missing a beat, "our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Wolfsbane."  
  
Snape's glare and smirk disappeared. If his reflexes hadn't been temporarily cut off, his jaw would have dropped. Stella Wolfsbane had just strode into the Great Hall, wearing an expression similar to the that students were so accustomed to see on Snape's face.  
  
She took the seat beside Snape, but didn't even turn her head to look at him, acting is if they had never met and she wasn't keen on introducing herself. Snape quickly regained his composure and turned back to the mass of black that was the student body of Hogwarts. There was a small scatter of applause. Snape was not among that minority.  
  
==XxXxX==  
  
Snape was grateful when Dumbledore announced the end of the feast. He soon grew sick of the furtive glances from Potter, or the almost admiring smirks from Malfoy. He detested them both.  
  
He was the first teacher to leave the staff table, soon followed (to his annoyance) by Stella Wolfsbane. He waited for her, and then put on a scowl.  
  
"So you have finally decided where your loyalties lie?" He asked coldly. She stopped in the corridor, and he turned to face her idly.  
  
"Don't talk to me about loyalty," she hissed at him, angrier than he had ever seen her. "You have it too." She reached over and grabbed his arm, gripping it hard exactly where the Dark Mark had been burned onto it. Snape didn't snatch his arm away.  
  
She let go roughly, and pushed him into the stone wall. "Besides, I only followed," she whispered icily. Then she went into her dungeon room, the only one that was available, and slammed the door behind her.  
  
Snape stood up straight, but then leaned back against the cold wall of the dungeon. What was she doing here?  
  
'But then,' a nasty little voice in his head replied, 'what are YOU doing here?'  
  
==XxXxX==  
  
Better than the old one? Be honest, please!! I WOULD LOVE FEEDBACK BEFORE I GET TOO FAR ON TO CORRECT IT AND ALL.  
  
THANK YOU.  
  
;)  
  
XxStarbuckxX 


	2. not an ordinary year

Title: The End  
  
Author: XxStarbuckxX  
  
Summary: Ok, I changed the title. I couldn't think of one that was really appropriate for the story. *shrug* It's the revised version of "The Return."  
  
Rating: PG13  
  
Genre: Romance/Angst, mostly. But there's the kinda A/A thing too. ^_^  
  
A/N: Thanks everybody who read The Return. I'm revising it, so hopefully I'll have more chapters and they'll be longer and stuff. BTW--I LIVE FOR FEEDBACK!  
  
==XxXxX==  
  
The next morning at dawn, Snape woke up like always. It was the first day of the term. Nothing different.  
  
He dressed silently in his black robes. Again, nothing different. Nothing to be concerned about, except remembering to take off points every chance he could. It would be an ordinary school year, as ordinary as it ever was at Hogwarts.  
  
The sun rays were beginning to seep through the window. Snape hated those rays. They always stretched out too far into areas that he wanted to leave behind him, touched him too slightly to mean anything and then later too strongly to forget about it.  
  
Then he remembered Stella Wolfsbane.  
  
He had never completely forgot about her. Yes, he tried. But he couldn't.  
  
He remembered her as a first year. When she was sorted into Slytherin along with him. She was as innocent as Slytherins come. But she had a strong mind. She was so strong in every way possible. But when she met Severus Snape, her strength became for him...He shook his head. He regretted that. He could have saved her from hell. Why didn't he? Why did he make her strong mind diminish, so that all she did was follow him to the flames which would scar the both of them for life?  
  
He shook away the memories of their seventh year that were beginning to flood his mind. She declared that she would follow him anywhere. What kind of influence did someone have to change someone like that? He hung his head. What a fool he had been, what a damned fool he was...  
  
She was right. He had it too. She could locate it perfectly when he hid it under his robes. They had the Dark Mark burned onto their arms together. They became servants of Voldemort together. They left together. Then they left each other.  
  
Snape was surprised when he reached the staff table. He didn't notice that he had left his room, slammed the door angrily, and walked up all the stairs. He absently ate some toast, thinking that if he accidentally swallowed some poison he could end all this before it started. He threw down the crust and glared at some nervous Hufflepuff first years, who must have thought that the only way they could ever find the Great Hall on time was to get up two hours before class started.  
  
He stood up, sighing. It would be an ordinary school year. Ordinarily stupid students.  
  
He stormed out of the hall, for the effect of fear. He was slightly pleased to notice the frightened shriek of one of the Hufflepuff girls.  
  
When he had just reached the stairs, he collided with a dark figure, which screamed as they tumbled down the stone steps. When they reached the bottom, they both froze, having gotten the breath knocked out of them. Then the figure he had ran into shoved him off her and stood up.  
  
"Sorry," Snape mumbled to Stella, also standing up.  
  
"Nice seeing you, Snape," she said coldly.  
  
"Yeah, good morning to you too," he snapped. Then he watched her retreating back as she almost ran up the staircase again.  
  
He walked slowly to his classroom.  
  
This was not going to be an ordinary school year.  
  
==XxXxX==  
  
Whatchya think? 


End file.
